


so i had done wrong and you made me right

by ziaming



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziaming/pseuds/ziaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>zayn doesn't expect to see liam in a grocery store and have his heart split, crack, explode; all he knows is regret and liam payne don't belong in the same sentence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so i had done wrong and you made me right

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in a frenzy after imagining zayn and liam running into each other over christmas break at a grocery store and it just spiraled. i hope you like it!

“Zayn?”

Zayn has a variety of wishes in the situation. He would either like the floor to swallow him whole, or a great eagle come and swoop down, pulling him out of the grocery store with great large talons, or maybe a hurricane that will come and suck him into a vortex. None of these things are going to happen, and he just needs to deal with that fact. It’s not easy, but he’s getting there.

“Hey! Hey, yeah, uh, Liam, right?”

He has memorized Liam’s name. It is stitched on this inside of his tongue, created a residency between his left two back molars that he can’t brush out and can’t reach with floss, no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much his teeth bleed. Liam is an extra rib that makes it hard to breath and Liam is water in his lungs that he needs to have medically extricated. Liam is, to put it mildly, a problem. Zayn knows exactly who Liam is.

Liam nods, a ridiculously large smile on his face and Zayn wants to kiss it but he knows he can’t do that because that is Old News and liamandzayn are Old News and you’re not supposed to repeat the past.

“Yeah, yeah, uh. Wow. You look great, Zayn.” He smiles genuinely and Zayn is sure he’s having chest pains.

“Thanks,” Zayn manages to choke out. “You look, yeah, you look awesome. How’s, uh, Harvard, right?”

Zayn knows that Liam went to Harvard more than he knows Othello or the Pythagorean Theorem or that Spanish test that he got a ninety-nine percent on.

“Yeah, yeah, Harvard! Wow, I’m surprised you remembered.”

Zayn just shrugs, because that’s how it always is, it’s Zayn remembering and Liam being blessed enough to forget some of their past. Zayn wants to know the secret to forgetting. Maybe if he asked Liam, he might tell him, but probably not.

“You’re going to Uni, right?” Liam looks so fucking genuine and Zayn grinds his teeth.

Zayn nods. “Yeah, in Portsmouth. It’s good, it’s no Harvard.” He laughs good-naturedly and it’s not a dig so Liam doesn’t feel the need to defend anything. Zayn thinks that maybe in another life, they could have had something.

“You enjoy it, right? No use in doing something if you don’t love it.” Liam says, finally looking away and picking up a head of lettuce and placing it in a plastic bag, then using his right index finger and his mouth to tie a knot. Well, that was completely unnecessary.

“Yeah, I love it, I’m meeting some great people. I’m meeting some friends later, actually.”

(His mother said, ‘Zayn, just be home in a few hours, okay? I know you don’t have anything going on this weekend, but I need you to be with the family, we miss you.’ Liam doesn’t need to know that.)

Liam smiles, but it looks defeated. Zayn wants to know what drives the muscles that push the smile forward, wants to be a cog in Liam’s body (it’s a well oiled machine),is jealous of everyone that get’s to know him, touch the inside of his forearms, make the hair stand up in the back of his neck.

“I knew you wouldn’t have trouble making friends, Zayn. Everyone loves you. “

Zayn wants to hear it, Zayn knows neither of them will ever say it. That was their big downfall, he thinks. He wanted too much. God, Zayn wanted everything. He wanted Liam to hand him his whole body, his whole mind, his whole soul, and let Zayn have his way with it. Zayn would have treated it so carefully. Liam would have been his god.

“Liam, can I ask you a question?”

*

“Liam, can I ask you, a , fuck, shit, hold, wait wait wait, I just-“

“What,” Liam spits out, licks a stripe up the side of Zayn’s neck, smiles when Zayn lets out an embarrassing shudder. “What would you have to say right now,” Liam says in between gasps for breath.

Liam has got his leg slotted in between Zayn’s, teasing, testing, and Zayn in on the edge.

“Liam, if you make me come on my parents bed, I don’t think this relationship can happen.”

Liam giggles, bites on the collarbone, licks the red into pink. “God, babe, you’re so warm. I could make you come without even taking your pants off. You want me so bad.”

He slips his hand underneath the waistband of Zayn’s toploaders and Zayn moans without abandon.

“I’m just a fuck to you,” Zayn murmurs without even realizing it, it just slips out, and suddenly Liam’s hands are not anywhere on him and he needs them back.

“What did you say to me,” Liam says, and the voice is so full of hurt and Zayn squints his eyes like if he could shut all of this out, it won’t be real, and Liam will be touching him again.

“Liam, don’t, I didn’t mean,” Zayn says, and he’s absolutely floundering. He wants to tell Liam to stay, wants to tell him everything, but his heart is too big for this room and it would never work.

“Ok, Zayn, sure,” Liam says, his voice full of sarcasm and brittle bones and he climbs off the bed, picks up his clothes, and within a matter of a few moments, he’s gone. It feels like an hour to Zayn.

*

“Ok, Zayn, sure. Ask away.”

“Did I—fuck, I’m sorry for bringing this up, but—did I mean anything to you?”

Liam blinks and there’s no anger there, to Zayn it looks like giving up but Liam has always been the hardest to read. “You meant—eh, I, uh—you meant a lot to me, Zayn.”

a lot. Concert tickets mean a lot, a well cooked meal means a lot, clean sheets mean a lot. It’s so empty and formal and Zayn doesn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t a lot.

Zayn nods. “Okay, yeah, I just wanted—um, yeah, okay, so, listen, I will see you around,” and Zayn is still mumbling incoherently and turning around and wanting to walk out when Liam grabs him by the crook of his elbow and keeps him there.

“Don’t shut off on me, Zayn. Why’d you ask me?” It’s not angry, it’s so level, it’s so Liam on a bright summer day with his crinkly eyes under the sheets, it’s so Liam with an arm tracing Zayn’s lone tattoo on his forearm, it’s Liam brushing his hair out of his eyes and saying, “you’re beautiful.”

“I miss you, sometimes,” Zayn says. “Everything ended so badly, I just needed to know, that, you know? I needed to know that it wasn’t so uneven.”

Liam shakes his head. “In my teenage head, god, I don’t know what went on in there most of the time, but I know that you were in there. You were always there. I think about you a lot.”

Zayn’s eyes widen. “Really?”

Liam nods. “Me walking away isn’t the only memory I have.”

Zayn shrugs. “Me too, yeah. We had good times.”

Liam smiles, and it’s a little crinkly.

“You remember?”

*

“You remember when this plan was ruined, I told you I was going to get this to work out.”

Zayn giggles. “Liam, the only reason it didn’t work out the last time is because you failed to notice that a monsoon was predicted for the time you wanted to sleep under the stars. Seriously, who forgets to check to weather report?”

Liam playfully pushes Zayn and Zayn feels his heart rise high, high, higher, and he loves Liam. He just can’t say it out loud.

“You know, I don’t need your attitude, Zayn.” Liam smiles and unfolds the blanket. “Grab the other ends and set the jars on the corners, yeah?”

The blanket flutters and is pushed down and there are gaps in his memory but Zayn remembers being pushed up against Liam, pressing his fingers over the skin and thin shirt material and he could feel Liam’s heartbeat, felt his own in equal measure.

“This is nice,” Zayn says, tangling his legs in Liam’s.

Liam nods. “I told you it would be nice. The bugs aren’t even bad.”

Zayn just stares at Liam, smiling, because sometimes it hits him, the way someone is so perfect. And it’s not like Liam doesn’t have his faults, because he does. But it’s just that, everything that surrounds him, it’s like he breathes and exhales sweet air, and everyone that has the chance to be around him is lucky and blessed.

“It’s really nice, Li. Thank you.” Zayn buries his face in Liam’s neck and Liam giggles. “Zayn you’re not looking at the stars, you’re missing it, what if there’s a shooting star and you miss it? You’ll be mad about it.”

Zayn says a muffled “Mphrg, couldn’t give a shit,” and Liam laughs, loudly, and it echoes. Zayn wants to record it on a cassette and push the tape inside his veins, let the black film roll up his wrists, through his arms, down into his heart, where it will keep circulating forever.

They are silent for a while.

“Zayn, are you sure you like it? You’re not just messing with me, right? Like you actually—”

“Don’t be silly, Liam. I wouldn’t lie to you. Of course I do.”

*

“Of course I do, of course I remember” Zayn says. “How could I ever forget our times? How could I forget you, Liam Payne?”

Liam smiles. “’I wanna try something, yeah?”

Zayn nods, and Liam walks away. Well, that was unexpected. Zayn turns around and heads towards the cash register, figuring that maybe a goodbye would have been too ridiculous, too painful, when he feels a tap on his shoulder and there is Liam, and Zayn doesn’t know what game he’s playing at. (But it’s Liam, and no matter what it is, he’ll always play along.)

“Hey, listen, I saw you over by the produce and you’re really cute, and I just wanted to know if I could take you out. My name is Liam.”

He holds out his hand and Zayn doesn’t know if he can start over, if he can push out all the hurt, if he can make his tongue form the words I and Love and You.

Zayn shakes his hand, laughing at the ridiculousness. “I’m Zayn.”

Liam grins. “You want to go for a cup of coffee or something? I mean, If you don’t have to meet your friends or something.”

Zayn shakes his head. “You knew I was lying. You know I’m not meeting any friends.”

Liam nods. “Yeah, well. I’m pretty good at reading strangers.”

strangers.

Zayn smiles. “So, coffee, yeah?”

Liam takes a deep breath, exhales it, threads his fingers into Zayn’s and positively beams.

Zayn doesn’t know if he can forget their history, if they can make it work, if he can finally say what he meant to say under the sheets and under the stars.

Zayn doesn’t know if he can, but he can damn well try.


End file.
